Okay, kiddies, it's time to clear your summer schedule for the "Redmond Justice" vacation series. Those gleamy-toothed "Saved By The Bell" kids got hitched in Vegas, the Bradys were cursed in Hawaii, and now Microsoft and the Justice Department are off to the Supreme Court. Set your VCRs, because once those crazy litigants get outside of Judge Jackson's courtroom, who knows what wacky hijinx will ensue?

Of course, any wackiness that occurs will be happening at a rather glacial pace. The Register has the schedule: Microsoft is set to fire the opening shot, by filing a brief with the Supreme Court on July 26th. (Good timing-- Macworld Expo will be over, so we won't miss anything!) Then the government will have until August 15th to craft its reply, and Microsoft then has the option to reply to the reply-- by August 22nd. These filings will determine whether or not the Supreme Court will agree to hear the case. Only four justices have to say yes, so we fully expect this to proceed in the most dramatic way possible. After all, now that Jackson's agreed to suspend Microsoft's conduct remedies until the appeal is resolved, the highest court in the land has far less reason to kick the case back to the Court of Appeals, though anything can happen.

Reportedly, once all these briefs have been filed, it's likely to be "at least a month" before the Supreme Court announces yea or nay. That means we're looking at the end of September before the appeal actually goes before either the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court-- but that's only to be expected, because the show obviously wants to start its fall season with the start of the actual appeal itself. The whole summer season will be spent in suspense, as the fans await the resolution of this cliffhanger: Supremes or Appeals? Which court handles the appeal could well set the tone for the entire next season. Commence nail-biting now...